Do you remember when Marilyn Monroe died? Everybody stopped work, and you could see all that day the same expressions on their faces, the same thought: ‘How can a girl with success, fame, youth, money, beauty . . . how could she kill herself?’ Nobody could understand it because those are the things that everybody wants, and they can’t believe that life wasn’t important to Marilyn Monroe, or that her life was elsewhere

Acting is an empty and useless profession.

George Bernard Shaw said that thinking was the greatest of all human endeavors, but I would say that feeling was. Allowing yourself to feel things, to feel love or wrath, hatred, rage.

Nobody "becomes" a character. You can't act unless you are who you are.

To grasp the full significance of life is the actor's duty, to interpret it is his problem, and to express it his dedication.

I have decided to tell the story of my life as best I can, so that my children can separate the truth from the myths that others have created about me, as myths are created about everyone swept up in the turbulent and distorting maelstrom of celebrity in our culture.

An actor must interpret life, and in order to do so he must be willing to accept all experiences that life can offer.